People are utilizing portable electronic devices for an increasing number and variety of tasks. Oftentimes, a user of an electronic device may want to obtain information regarding objects, persons, and/or locations in the surrounding areas. For instance, the user may want to obtain directions from the user's current location to a target location. However, it can be difficult to obtain accurate directions in certain situations. Because a device relying on a conventional global positioning system (GPS) can only approximate its location to +/−20 meters, the device may not be able to effectively guide a user situated inside a limited space. Further, the accuracy of GPS determinations typically drops off when the user is inside a building, such that GPS directions can be even less useful trying to get from one location to another location within the building. Not only would it be difficult for the device relying on GPS to accurately determine the initial location of the device, the device cannot accurately track its position and orientation as the user moves about. Further, in some instances, the maps stored on the device may be out-of-date or incorrect, thereby increasing the overall unreliability of conventional methods.
In addition to the unreliability of the directions provided by the devices while using GPS, directions are currently provided to users in a way that assumes that a user of the device has some knowledge of the area and their position and orientation within it. For example, a device may show a user that she is currently located on a certain street, but fail to show whether she is facing east or west. This hardly intuitive interface makes it difficult for the user to know which direction to proceed and tends to force the user to engage in guesswork before getting on the right path.